The Beginning of Our Story

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Another Year, Another Job Hunt

The past two days I've been pretty depressed. Mostly about jobs and income, but of course every time I see a picture of Danni on my background, it doesn't help matters. A lot of times her pictures can make me smile, but when I'm already down, it just makes me miss her that much more.

Saint Bernard's was, by far, the best place to work (yeah, the pay wasn't the greatest, but the people were, and that alone is priceless). Eagan has been nice to work at too. My co-workers are all very nice, and the kids (most of them anyway!) aren't so bad either. The pay, of course, is amazing, compared to SB.

But, now, again, a year later (and 7 months pregnant), I'm looking for a job. The position that I currently have is being cut to a .8 (instead of full time), and is being split between two schools. I have to reapply (already done), and re-interview for the position. But the more and more I've been hearing about the position, its seeming less and less like a possibility.

On Monday, I got home from school, depressed, and applied to 8 different openings that I found. (Keep in mind last year, I sent out over 40, and got 13 interviews, and 2 1/2 job offers - one I was second on the list and they later called me back because their first choice backed out.) But this year will be different. Last year I did do a couple interview 8 and 9 months pregnant with Danielle, but this time all my interviews I will be 7, 8, or 9 months pregnant. Granted, it's legally not supposed to play a factor in whether or not they hire you, but if you tell me it honestly doesn't, I won't believe you. When you're looking for a teacher to start a school year and you have two equally qualified candidates, but one will have a baby at the beginning of the school year, so you'll have to do more interviews to find a long-term sub, which candidate do you think they're going to pick? I was so depressed and stressed that I fought so hard (and unsuccessfully) to not cry myself to sleep. And of course, being pregnant I couldn't take any sleeping drugs to help.

Yesterday, I got home from school, slightly less depressed, but I couldn't bring myself to apply to any jobs. Adam didn't have school, so he was home when I got home. We talked a little about the whole situation, and Adam reminded me that if I don't get a job, there is always unemployment. As I was getting ready for bed, he had out his phone and was checking websites for figures, and calculating what I would be making after day care costs, and what I would be making on unemployment. When we looked at what we would have each month and compared the numbers, they were fairly close. We thought about it, and after refinancing our mortgage, the money that we're saving each month on payments is about how much less I would be making on unemployment.

Today, as I'm sitting at work on my prep, I wanted to double check some numbers. We couldn't access the unemployment website (apparently you can only estimate your benefits online from 6am to 6pm), and I wanted to double check the daycare costs. We were pretty much right on with the unemployment estimate, but were a little high on our estimate of daycare costs. The difference was only about $100 a month from what we had calculated last night. Then I looked at what I would be making if I got the .8 split-school position, and found (after day care expenses) I would actually be making more on unemployment.

These numbers are a little uplifting to me. I'm not so depressed about the income part, but I am still depressed about the job part. I think it's hard not to be if you lose your job twice in a year through no fault of your own.